Barnali Chanda

Barnali Chanda is a China Studies Post Doctoral Fellow affiliated to Ashoka University, India. She has a Ph.D in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, India. She received her M.A. and M.Phil in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, India. She has taught Chinese Language as a Guest Faculty in the School of Languages and Linguistics, Jadavpur University. Barnali’s thesis conducts a comparative thematic study of selected strange and fantastic narratives of medieval China and medieval India. Her field of interests includes comparative literature, Chinese and Indian literary transactions in the classical period, reception of Buddhist ideas in Chinese and Sanskrit strange and marvelous stories, Tang and Ming dynasty Chinese narrative tradition and translation of Chinese classical and vernacular literature into English and Bengali. Barnali has co-authored two books, Of Asian Lands: A View from Bengal (An Annotated Bibliography of a Century of Travel Narratives to Asian Lands in Bangla) published by Jadavpur University in 2009 and Tellings and Retellings: Strange tales of Medieval China, published by Jadavpur University in March 2015. She has also published an essay entitled “Parrot Tales in Chinese and Indian Classical Literary Traditions: A Comparative Study,” which appeared in Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature (2014-16). In 2015 Barnali was selected as an ‘Emerging Scholar’ by the India China Institute, New School, New York. She was awarded the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship (The MOFA) from 2011-2012 and a Chinese Government Scholarship from 2008-2009 (Ministry of Human Resource and Development). Her current research interests include Pre-Modern Chinese and Sanskrit literary traditions and travel narratives.